Nickelodeon Needs Its Own ‘Kingdom Hearts’

Nickelodeon has been a titan in children’s television for decades now. It’s given the world iconic TV series and characters, both in live-action like Kenan & Kel or iCarly and in animation like Rugrats and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Throughout the course of their existence, they’ve played around with the idea of crossovers between their properties. The monsters from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters appeared in an episode of Rugrats while the babies were sharing ghost stories. The movie Rugrats Go Wild featured the Rugrats characters meeting the family from The Wild Thornberrys. The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour was a trilogy of TV specials that served as a crossover between The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius and The Fairly OddParents. Nicktoons Unite!, Nicktoons: Battle for Volcano Island, Nickelodeon Party Blast, Nicktoons Racing, Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots, and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl are all crossover video games featuring characters from various Nicktoons. Even iCarly and Victorious had a crossover episode.

With all this attention on crossovers, what Nickelodeon could really use is its own Kingdom Hearts. For those who aren’t aware, Kingdom Hearts is a video game series featuring an original character traveling between the worlds of different Disney movies. It’s a wildly successful series that now features over a dozen games, so it’s obviously been a formula that works.

This same formula could work for Nickelodeon as well. There was a time when Nickelodeon felt like a true rival to Disney, so making their own attempt at this only makes sense. They could benefit from their own Kingdom Hearts style game with all the beloved franchises they have in their library.

An original character traveling between the worlds of Nickelodeon’s IPs for the sake of saving them all from certain destruction would be a blast. Helping SpongeBob and the gang in Bikini Bottom, moving on to assist the Rugrats on an adventure, heading toward the Ghost Zone to fight alongside Danny Phantom, and following that formula throughout popular Nicktoons and maybe even a couple of their live-action series like Henry Danger would make for a great celebration of their franchises while making something fun.

There are a lot of directions they can go with something like this. Perhaps the various Nickelodeon villains from Plankton and Firelord Ozai to the Almighty Tallest and Mr. Crocker team up to take over all worlds. Maybe there’s a new villain in charge of them all, or just one so big that they’re bigger than any threat Nickelodeon shows have seen so far. Either way, slime-based enemies have to be a thing, right?

This could be an entertaining way of representing their various series, from The Ren & Stimpy Show to The Loud House, and seeing characters from them crossover and interact with each other in a single, exciting storyline. Obviously, it would need to differentiate itself from the already-existing Kingdom Hearts, which it can easily do with gameplay mechanics. The combat mechanics of a character-action game and the theme of unlocking hearts and magic don’t match Nickelodeon like they do Disney. Nickelodeon is much more about being zany and making messes. Instead of using a magic key, the playable character would probably use a slime cannon or paintball blaster. Obviously, Nickelodeon touches on plenty of more heartfelt themes like what’s seen in Hey Arnold! and Avatar: the Last Airbender, so kindness, friendship, and working together would still be a huge part of the story.

Not every brand needs its own Kingdom Hearts style game, but a Nickelodeon one would work extremely well. It’s got the IPs for it, it already has a fun focus on crossovers, it’s got a huge fanbase, and it’s something fun that lends itself to entertaining video games already. If this is something that’s ever attempted, it’s bound to do well and be something great.

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